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Is there a template for junior cultist, mid-level cultist, and high level cultist in print or elsewhere? I can use the cultists from the sample chronicle in DtD, but I think that high level/stigmatic cultists would have supernatural merits. (Yes, I can cobble them up on my own, but I've go a lot of NPC's to flesh out and a few typical mooks would be helpful).

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I'm pretty ignorant of the CoD ruleset, so please excuse this dumb question. Rasha, a rank 5 angel, is listed as having a Power of of 10 and a defense of 10. If for some weird reason Benny the Demon with a Strength of 4 and a Defense of 3 gets into a fist fight with Rasha, then Rasha would role 7 dice against Benny with each success registered as a point of bashing damage, and Benny has only a chance die against Rasha which can do at most one point of bashing. If Benny had a knife rated at 1L, he still only has a chance die, but if he does hit he does 2L damage (one for the die, one for the extra damage of the knife). Is this correct?

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I'm pretty ignorant of the CoD ruleset, so please excuse this dumb question. Rasha, a rank 5 angel, is listed as having a Power of of 10 and a defense of 10. If for some weird reason Benny the Demon with a Strength of 4 and a Defense of 3 gets into a fist fight with Rasha, then Rasha would role 7 dice against Benny with each success registered as a point of bashing damage, and Benny has only a chance die against Rasha which can do at most one point of bashing. If Benny had a knife rated at 1L, he still only has a chance die, but if he does hit he does 2L damage (one for the die, one for the extra damage of the knife). Is this correct?

I hope this blows your mind.

As an ephemeral entity, Rasha uses Power + Finesse to attack. If we're using the stats in the Chronicles book, that means he has a dicepool of 22 for attacking Benny (10 Power + 15 Finesse - 3 Defense).

But yes, Benny would likely have a chance die. To hit Rasha bare-handed they would roll Strength + Brawl - 10 (Rasha's Defense). And if he manages to hit with a 1L knife (Strength + Weaponry - Defense) he does 2 damage, but it would likely be Bashing damage, due to this rule:

'Physical attacks on a manifest entity that normally cause lethal damage only cause bashing damage unless the attack utilizes the entity’s bane. Despite appearing to the naked eye and being solid, a manifest spirit, ghost, or angel doesn’t have any internal organs to injure.'

If Benny was using Rasha's bane, it would do 2 Aggravated damage.

Ephemeral entities can get pretty powerful, and Rank 5 is the most powerful kind there's actually rules for, so Rank 5 entities tend to be 'final boss'-like in terms of power.

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As an ephemeral entity, Rasha uses Power + Finesse to attack. If we're using the stats in the Chronicles book, that means he has a dicepool of 22 for attacking Benny (10 Power + 15 Finesse - 3 Defense).

THANK YOU! I can find so few examples of actual battle mechanics played out that I am often unsure of what is deadly and what is not. Your are of course correct that Rasha is overwhelmingly powerful - he's a Rank 5 angel. However, even Jenn (CoD p.259) who is a rank 2 angel has Power+Finesse = 8 dice which is double the 4 dice of Barroom Brawling of the World Weary PI (p.121) and comparable to the Handguns (4) + Dexterity (3) = 7 dice of the Slick Professional Grifter (p.121). I'm not complaining - its just that I didn't understand that a Rank 2 angel is punching for bashing damage comparable to the Lethal damage of a handgun armed opponent.

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Blast: The entity may wound opponents at a distance. Range is equal to 10 yards per dot of Power, and the entity does not suffer range penalties. If the activation roll succeeds, the Blast wounds as a lethal weapon. The entity may increase the lethality of its Blast by paying Essence — every 2 Essence spent increases the “weapon” by one lethal damage. The maximum weapon bonus is equal to the entity’s Rank.

So for example, consider "The Brilliant" (p.220) with a Power of 9 and a Finesse of 8 and who has the Blast numen. Let's assume the target's defense is 3.

How many dice does he roll to attack? Power+Finesse-Defense=14? Even though the attack is ranged?

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The answer is correct, but also remember that Blast is supposed to be flavoured in some fashion. Depending on how you flavour it, it can make sense to apply Defense (if the Blast can be likened to a thrown weapon) and/or Armor (if the Blast takes the form of projectiles) to the attack even if it's not stated in the rules.

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This is more a semantics question, but this is the last paragraph for the Suborned Infrastructure Gadgets;

“Due to the connection to the God-Machine that the sub- orned Infrastructure confers to the hardware of the gadget, hacking into the subroutines used to create it is easier than normal. The player gains a +2 bonus to all rolls to investigate or reverse engineer the gadget. Lambda creation is also easier for the same reason, allowing a +2 bonus to all rolls to create a lambda using a gadget created with suborned Infrastructure. If the demon took the time to precise engineer the gadget, these rolls also benefit from the 8-again quality.”

Does that mean that even when constructing a Lambda (as in adding all the other gadget bits into the new hardware) using a Precision Engineered Suborned Infrastructure gadget, you get 8-again on your rolls? It seems to suggest that, since the Precision Engineering aspect already grants 8-again when you disassemble a gadget, and that kind of repetition isn’t done much elsewhere (even in places where it’d be very helpful, such as Implanted gadgets).

Related question;

“When a demon uses any gadget made with suborned Infrastructure, it is always over-clocked (p. 157) unless it is a form or one-shot gadget.”

Does that include a Lambda that has mundane hardware, but one of its component gadgets was made from Suborned Infrastructure. I feel that it negates the usefulness of using a Suborned Infrastructure gadget for this in the first place, but that’s just me.

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Henry is a white collar criminal who got sent to jail for embezzlement at a bank. His life is ruined. I, as a demon, make a pact with Henry to take on that aspect of his life. Now I am a known embezzler, and Henry's record is clean and he can get a new job.

How far do the changes go? Certainly Henry's family and friends will be affected by the change. But will the prison records show that I was in prison? Will the court records show that I was convicted? What about the FBI records?

Could the pact change history so that he was exonerated and I was actually convicted for the crime so that he gains complete innocence in all records everywhere?

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In the Chronicle I am writing the final chapter involves the GodMachine trying to gently "nudge" a sleeping ancient entity to align it with the GM's local occult matrix. This would provide the local GM infrastructure with substantially more Essence. Waking it would be a Bad Idea from the GM's point of view, since this would cause the destruction of the matrix. The players will have to decide if and how to intervene.

So I need a "kaiju" level spirit or something, a critter that can squish a Rank 4 angel. I could just go without stats and run it as a narrative device, but it might be nice to actually have a write-up. Nothing I've seen in the Night Horrors book is at this level. Can anyone point me to a write-up of something like this?

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I need some quick advice for a DtD game I will start in the New Year. I have not run an ST or DtD game before, but have experience in other game systems.

The ring will be three or four new players, Primum 1 or 2 (entry level) Demons. The scenario starts with A Small Town With A Secret. One of the major foils for the PC's will be a small town sheriff who terrorizes the town. He's at least some sort of priest/stigmatic in the local Machine Cult with a few low level powers (he has Clairvoyance to observe any spot in his jurisdiction) and of course the full weight of the Law if the players cross him.

My question is - is this enough as a challenge for 3-4 demons? Should I make him a low level angel? Or should I hold off on angels until later in the narrative? (You don't pull out the big guns right away).

A related question: I'd like to have a traveling Messenger angel character to act as the originator of local messianic GM cults. By having the angel be itinerant I could call it in to the storyline if the players need a challenge, or leave it out if they are having difficulties with the storyline as I have written it. Such a messenger would seem to be a pretty common template to exploit religious communities. Can anyone point me to a published character or one on the forum that fits the bill?